2039: Heathrow's Third Runway Slips Four Years as Planning Law Stacks the Delays
September 26, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Heathrow told ministers this week that its third runway will not open until 2039, four years past the 2035 deadline set in January 2025. No planning application exists yet, and a parliamentary vote to finalise the framework could slip to 2027.
Heathrow's third runway will not open until 2039, four years past the 2035 deadline that then-Chancellor Rachel Reeves set in January 2025. Airport chiefs told ministers this week that the original target was impossible to meet, The Times reported.
The revised plan is to secure planning permission by 2029, then open the runway within a decade of that. The Department for Transport confirmed this weekend that no live planning application has been filed. A draft planning framework published in June 2026 remains in consultation, and a parliamentary vote to finalise it could reportedly slip to 2027.
From Reeves's announcement to the earliest credible opening date runs 14 years. The Daily Mail noted that proposals for a third runway date to 1946, making 2039 a long journey from first proposal to first flight.
The official line from Chancellor John Healey is that the project has received "the go-ahead" and that "the economic case stacks up." Heathrow promised at least 108,000 new jobs and "billions invested in supply chains in every part of the country," calling the scheme "100% privately financed." The Department for Transport said it would continue to work with stakeholders "at pace."
Planning law is doing real work on the timeline. Heathrow said the runway could be delivered sooner if additional regulatory barriers are removed, beyond the planning law reforms already introduced by the Government. The airport is asking ministers to clear further hurdles before a planning application even exists. One physical obstacle alone: the M25 must be rerouted through a tunnel between junctions 14 and 15, a piece of work Alliance News put at £1.5 billion of a total estimated project cost of £33 billion.
The airport currently operates at around 98% capacity, handling 84 to 85 million passengers a year across two runways and capped at 480,000 flights annually. The third runway would raise capacity to 756,000 flights and 150 million passengers a year. Every year of delay is a year that flight slots stay constrained.
While the planning documents circulate, Heathrow lost its title as the world's busiest airport to Istanbul this summer, the Daily Mail reported. The government's climate advisers warned last week that expansion should only go ahead if airlines were required to fund cleaner flying, a condition that could push ticket prices up by hundreds of pounds by 2050.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham, heading to his first Labour conference as PM, told colleagues he had "never been in favour" of the scheme. On ITV's Lorraine Kelly show this week, he said "the voice of local areas must be heard first in this debate before anywhere else." His predecessor Keir Starmer called the runway "a cornerstone of delivering economic growth." His Chancellor has said the project has the government's "go-ahead" and that "the economic case stacks up." His PM calls it an open question.
The planning process has been running, in one form or another, since before any of the people deciding it were born.
Published September 26, 2026 · Frisian News